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MCDM Wiki:Style Guide
What follow are a set of guidelines for writing articles. They are not hard and fast rules, but should help to make articles more readable and consistent. Remember, the purpose of the wiki is to serve as a reference for fans. If you have to choose between making the wiki better at its purpose and following these guidelines, throw the guidelines out the window. A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of tiny minds. Grammar, syntax, punctuation, and other stuff your English teacher cares about In general, the Wikipedia style guide is a good set of guidelines for general issues not covered in this document. Make sure to end every sentence with an appropriate punctuation mark. Only use a single space between sentences. The serial comma, sometimes called the Oxford comma, is preferred, but any sentence that needs the serial comma to make sense should be reworded. So instead of saying "Two of the Chain's senior officers, a mind flayer, and a dragonborn walked into a bar," try "A mind flayer, a dragonborn, and two of the Chain's senior officers walked into a bar." For the same reason, don't write "Two of the Chain's senior officers, Judge and King, walked into a bar," when you could instead write "Judge and King, two of the Chain's senior officers, walked into a bar". The tense of in-universe statements should be appropriate to the end of the most recent episode of the stream. So you should say "King is the Commander," and "Sweet was the Commander." Given how quickly the Chain goes through Commanders, this may take some work to maintain. The name of a series, such as The Chain or Running the Game should be capitalized and italicized, while the name of an episode, such as , should be in quotation marks. The template will format an episode name for you and keep it up to date. Article titles and headings Article titles should be written in sentence case, capitalizing the first letter but no others unless they are part of a proper noun. An article's title should be the name by which the subject is currently and most commonly known. In the case of members of the Chain of Acheron, their Chain nickname should be the article title. Section headings should also be written in sentence case. Article organization Properly dividing an article into sections and subsections greatly increases the article's readability. As a rule of thumb, try to keep the number of paragraphs between section or subsection headers to three or fewer, and the number of sentences in a paragraph to five or fewer. Keep section names short and informative. For an example of a bad section name, see "Grammar, syntax, punctuation, and other stuff your English teacher cares about". There should only be a single paragraph before the first heading. Section headings should be written in sentence case. Introductory paragraphs The first sentence of the introductory paragraph should contain the title of the article in bold, and may include alternate names by which the same subject is known, also bolded. Slim's article, for instance, may be introduced with "D'jelek the Impious, known within the Chain of Acheron as Slim". Wiki stuff Templates Templates are your friends. * When referring to the name of an episode of a series, use the template as noted above. * Avoid using the block quote paragraph style. Instead, use the or templates. * Use templates when appropriate in references, including , , and . Links Links are also your friends! Link the first mention of a subject that has its own page (or section of a page) to that page/section. If a subject doesn't have a page, but you think it should or probably will, add the link anyway. It'll show up as a redlink, which helps editors see which pages still need to be written and will become a grown-up blue link once the page is written. At your discretion, you may decide to add a link to a mention of a subject that has already been linked in the article, particularly if it's the first mention of that subject in a section and you expect that someone may skip to that section and then wonder where the link is. It's better to be useful to fans than perfectly consistent. In-universe noodliness * When discussing the Chain of Acheron, don't capitalize or hyperlink the word "the". Well, capitalize the "the" if it's at the beginning of a sentence, but never include it in the hyperlink. * Italicize the names of vessels (e.g. Somnium Tenebris). Do not italicize a vessel's prefix (e.g. [[H. R. P. Broad Sword|H. R. P. Broad Sword]]). * While we're on the subject of vessels, don't use feminine pronouns (i.e. she/her) to refer to them. Stick with "it". * Technically, using a definite article ("the") in conjunction with the name of a ship is incorrect, but no one follows that rule, and we're certainly not going to enforce it, so by all means keep calling it "the Somnium Tenebris". Don't, however, use "the" with a ship's prefix, 'cause then it'd look like we're calling it "the His Royal Prince's Broad Sword", which clearly makes no sense. * The term ancestry is always preferred to race. * The names of ancestries and sub-ancestries (e.g. human, elf, githyanki) are not proper nouns. * Classes are not proper nouns, but subclasses are, so Slim is a Battlemaster fighter. Note that nicknames for a subclass are not proper nouns, so while Nails was a sorcerer with the Wild Magic origin, he was a wild mage, not a Wild Mage. * Nationalities and languages are capitalized, so an individual might be a Riojan halfling Gloom Stalker ranger who speaks Halfling. * The names of spells, psionic manifestations, and magic items are italicized. * Spells are not capitalized except for proper nouns in the names of spells (so fireball and Mordenkainen's magnificent mansion). * Generic names for magic items (e.g. belt of hill giant strength) are not capitalized except for proper nouns within them (e.g. Heward's handy haversack). Individual named magic items (e.g. Wound) are capitalized.